Even when he was studying for his Class 10 boards, two years ago, Manish Kumar never burnt the midnight oil. Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t. The ineptness of the state meant power supply was an occasional and fickle companion for this 17-year-old resident of Garkha, a village 70 km from Patna, the capital of Bihar. So, he learnt to sleep early to rise early to make use of the morning light. Today, two years on, as Manish gets ready for the big 12, things have not changed at Garkha in Saran district—and they have. The state power machinery is still groping in the dark ages. But, a home boy, Vivek Gupta, is offering a glimmer of hope to Manish to dare the midnight hour.

It is an operation self-contained in the village. On the one hand, it feeds power to villagers. On the other, it gives income to local Dhaincha farmers.

Gupta’s company, Saran Renewable Energy (SRE), has installed a 128 kilo watt (kw) power plant at Garkha that runs on a leafy plant called Dhaincha. On paper, that’s good enough to feed one fan and one light in about 2,500 households, 24x7. Although SRE’s output cannot meet the needs of the entire village, about 200 businesses and shops, two cold storage units, a cinema hall, a saw mill and several genset operators are plugging in. And the genset operators are, in turn, retailing power to households and businesses.

The cost to consumer is Rs 8-12 per unit. That’s about twice that in cities and about the same as the subsidised cost of solar power. But it’s 33% cheaper than the noisy and polluting diesel-powered gensets—the popular alternative in Saran district. Slowly, Garkha is hooking up to Gupta’s power plant, whose uniqueness is two-fold: it is non-polluting and it is an operation self-contained in the village. On the one hand, it provides power to the village. On the other, it provides income to farmers who grow Dhaincha.

Planting Change

For Gupta, the plant is a labour of love. He grew up in Saran, but he was privileged. There were others who weren’t, and Gupta couldn’t forget that. Even when he started working with ICICI Bank, after passing out from the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT) in New Delhi, Gupta wanted to improve the standard of living of rural folk in Bihar. He floated an NGO and also tried his hand at integrated farming, but neither was successful.

The idea of SRE germinated in ICICI Bank. “My bank was helping set up renewal-energy projects,” says the 31-year-old Gupta. “I decided to give it a shot.” He roped in brother Ramesh Kumar to do a feasibility survey on the availability of fuel, land and electricity demand in Garkha. He also brought in his father, Yogendra Prasad, as he knew a thing or two about farming patterns in Garkha.

There were proven power-generation models that SRE could have easily replicated. Like the model that uses wood and corn cobs as fuel, or the model that is powered by rice husk, both of which were working in neighbouring districts. But Gupta ruled them out because their fuels couldn’t be sourced locally.

Gupta and his team zeroed in on Dhaincha—a fast-growing leguminous plant that grows well on clayey soils. In Saran district, vast tracts of the low-lying land between the rivers Ganga and Gandak are water-logged. That makes them unsuitable for cultivating most crops. But Dhaincha thrives in such climes and doesn’t even require much tending. And it grows in 6-8 months.

Gupta gave farmers an incentive to grow Dhaincha. He also gave them seeds for free. They were only too happy to grow it. “It is a zero investment crop and uses my barren land. And I also get electricity,” says MP Singh, a local farmer. Around 5 tonnes (5,000 kg) of Dhaincha can be produced on one hectare annually. For a farmer, that means Rs 7,500-10,000 per hectare per year from a plot of land of no use.

In 2008-09, its first year of operation, SRE could source only 2,000-2,500 kg of Dhaincha, and had to substitute it with waste wood (its power plant is dual fuel). That year, the plant operated for 11 hours per day. According to SRE estimates, electricity from the plant replaced about 38,500 litres of diesel and avoided the production of about 103 tonnes of carbon dioxide.

Since then, more land in Garkha has come under Dhaincha. “This year is crucial to determine our project viability. Much will depend on how much fuel we get,” says Gupta, pointing towards the vast areas under Dhaincha cultivation. At current demand, the annual savings estimated in Garkha is 77,000 litres of diesel and 206 tonnes of CO2.

Power-Packed Plans

The project, however, has suffered both time and cost overruns. It’s delayed by nearly two years and the project cost has gone up by Rs 20 lakh to Rs 80 lakh. “Land acquisition problems, convincing locals about its benefits and doing the transmission lines added to the cost,” says Gupta.

Even for SRE, it’s been a learning curve. The main learning is that it’s feasible to generate power, but transmission and distribution (T&D) is a different ballgame. “Putting up T&D lines is difficult,” says brother Ramesh. “We would prefer to be part of the grid than set up our own lines.” So, even as they manage T&D activities in Garkha, the SRE team say future expansions will all be grid-based.

SRE is planning several renewable-energy plants, but on a larger scale—5 MW in Sheetalpur, 2 MW in Chapra and another 1.5 MW in Garkha. Besides these bigger projects, it is working on a cluster plan. These would be smaller 20-40 kw plants on non-electrified islands of Ganga or villages along the Gandak river. At least four husk-based plants will be operational by end-2010 in areas where there is sufficient fuel supply. SRE is also planning a plant similar to Garkha in Bharatpur, Nepal. And once these other plants are underway, SRE plans to double capacity at Garkha.

Meanwhile, at Garkha, SRE is working with villagers to help them shift and adapt to a way of life where power supply is a given. Most farmers there use diesel-guzzling generator engines as motors in thrashers or for other mechanical work. To make them switch to electric motors, SRE plans to work like a micro-finance institution. It plans to give electric motors, costing Rs 10,000 each, to 20 self-help groups. “If they switch, it will boost demand for our power,” says Gupta. One person who doesn’t need any talking to is Class XII Manish.